Pretty new to photography in general, tried to expose most of them manually so its probably off in a lot of the shots. No post production on any of these shots. There's these areas of the cbd square thats totally fenced off and I wanted to focus on the signs and have the destruction blurred in the background but kinda went a little overboard on the low apertures...I thought it'd visually close off those areas like its physically closed off but in some shots its just made it look like I have a sh*t camera New to photography so constructive criticism is appreciated as long as its not done rudely.
The main problem you have is that although it is a post-earthquake set there isn't actually anything really tells that story. This means that it rather looks like a series on demolition or construction sites. The wider apertures were probably a good idea, as a set it is a record of how things were left and worth taking, but as pictures they don't really stand up individually.
Don't feel bad about not nailing an iconic shot. It shows you just how good the best reportage guys are. I was in LA a couple of days after the '93 earthquake and went right to the epicentre and did a load of rubbish (well I won one award, but that was for the wonky mount I put it in). I got nowhere near the iconic shot of the backs of a line of parked cars cut off by the building that sat down on them that went around the globe.
In most cases I find the signs are too dominant in the frame and coupled with the defocused backgrounds are simply overwhelming any possible storyline in the image. I feel that stepping back and including somewhat more of the background scene may well have given a little more context to each image and to the signs in particular. Definitely worth a revisit if possibe...
only like #7 but still not much going on. many of them are suffering from bad composition or are just too messy. good that you got out and took a series of something though. i keep putting it off.
When approaching a photo task like this it can pay to think in film terms. First you need an opening, an establishing shot - something that shows 'EARTHQUAKE'; then you can build on that with a mix of longs, wides & close-ups seeking to put in the 'hits' {pics that try to elicit an emotional response} at various places along the way, leading to your resolution & ending. Suggest you try to have a look at some old Picture Posts and more recent magazines {the Saturday d.Telegraph mag used to be one of the recent best} that carry photo stories. See how they are laid out and 'paced'. Try and get into the heads of the photographer, Picture Editor and Art/Graphics Editor. Hope this helps.
